No one can come near England currently in the ODI format: James Anderson

The England cricket team has made a remarkable recovery in their limited-overs fortunes after crashing out in the league stages of the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Under Eoin Morgan’s leadership, ‘new’ England has dominated the limited-overs set-up in the last couple of seasons. Since 2017, Morgan’s side has won their last nine series, excluding the one-off ODI loss against Scotland, including 3-1 recently in Sri Lanka. The recently-concluded series saw England winning all three formats against Sri Lanka, including a 3-0 whitewash in the Tests. James Anderson, England’s leading wicket-taker in tests, believes England will have to play incredibly badly if they do not win the 2019 World Cup which will be played at home this time.

Speaking in an episode of Tailenders Podcast, Anderson said Virat Kohli’s Indian cricket team comes closest when it comes to matching England’s consistency. “But I think in our conditions I don't think anyone is going to come near so I think we've really got to screw up if we don't win the World Cup. There's no-one really anywhere near in the one-day form, probably India,” Anderson said.

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England is building solid momentum ahead of the 2019 World Cup and has been in dominant form in 2018. They hammered Australia 4-1 and secured a tense 3-2 win over New Zealand. In their first series at home, England achieved history by whitewashing Australia 5-0 for the first time ever and they topped it off with a brilliant 2-1 series win against a formidable Indian side.

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In 2015, they were facing a must-win game against Bangladesh in their last league game in Adelaide but they lost by 15 runs to crash out of the tournament. The loss saw the exit of coach Peter Moores. In ICC events, England have only won the 2010 World T20 under the leadership of Paul Collingwood while in the World Cups, they have lost in the final three times in 1979, 1987 and 1992. They also lost in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013 while in 2017, they were knocked out by Pakistan in the semi-finals. Both the tournaments were held in England.